The car is being developed for the Chinese market and will be available with both gas and plugin hybrid powertrains.

Dr Frank Welsch, Volkswagen’s director of development, told Autoblog this new SUV could be sold in the USA and Russia too.

“In the U.S., you have Tiguan long wheelbase, and the other [new] one is close to what we have here in Europe as the Tiguan SWB. It’s a little bit smaller than that, about the size of the old Tiguan, but new and it’s off the MQB. This is the idea behind it. In China, we will have this car next year, and we are thinking whether this could be a good idea for America and Russia,” Welsch told Autoblog.

If the new SUV is given the greenlight for the USA, it will arrive in 2019 or 2020.